OUT OF THE WOODS - Astrology for the Next Renaissance

BY PHIL RECKARD, ASTROLOGER

I am an astrologer because of a life-long fascination with why people seem to be so different, yet are essentially very similar. Human behavior is so weird, wacky, wondrous and frustrating, and I always figured there had to be spiritual (unseen) reasons why we’re all here - and acting so clueless. Looking for Universal and timeless truths has led me to consider many paths, including established and alternative spirituality and Jungian archetypes. Eventually, I found the planets and that’s when all my bells sounded off.

I have no formal credentials, only good and positive intentions. I believe astrology can help people make sense of changes and influences in their lives, and is quite accurate in predicting future trends. I’m a political and social Progressive because I have a Soul and a conscience.

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Sun in Aries, March 20 - April 19 (all times EDT)

Watching the news these days might make us feel like crawling into a corner, but that would be a correct thing to do if the corner is your sacred space to join in on the global meditation at the Full Moon. The Libra Full Moon of March 21 sets up at 90° angles to the separating Mars/Pluto opposition, forming what is known as a “Grand Cross” on Good Friday. These cross-currents are urging us to move beyond simply praying for sanity, and actually becoming the voice of sanity whether it be a call-out for world peace, sending and receiving love, removing obstacles, or whatever else needs the balance that a Libra Full Moon represents. The equinox (March 20) is traditionally a time of new beginnings for those of us in the northern hemisphere, so let’s help turn it on, shall we? Leave no doubt.

To put some of the immediate tension into context, Aries’ ruling planet Mars moved out of exact opposition with Pluto at the New Moon of March 7 and kept moving on, but he won’t be out of his retrograde shadow until the first week of April, just in time for the New Moon of April 5. In other words, the Mars/Pluto opposition and Mars’ retrograde shadow are still very much in effect at the equinox and Full Moon. This energetic has been the motivation behind some people’s desire to lash out (Mars) at large and invisible targets they’re not likely to hit (Pluto), especially in political and economic arenas.

Mars moves through the rest of emotional Cancer until the second week of May, reminding us that the crab (Cancer) has a shell for two main reasons; self-containment and protection. We can’t be too sure how well others have been dealing with the conclusion of the Mars/Pluto oppositions, so a little protective seclusion might be in order this month.

Looking beyond the Full Moon and equinox for a moment, the New Moon of April 5 at 17° Aries provides guidance for how to proceed. Dane Rudhyar in his “An Astrological Mandala” refers to 17° Aries as an “inward withdrawal,” coinciding with the tarot card for this month, the Hermit. The hermit crab in particular would be a highly appropriate animal totem for us to consider. These tiny crustaceans inhabit shells not of their own species, suggesting they seek out a protective home from something outside of themselves - something stronger than their inherent weaknesses. Even though the empty shell of a sea snail (a hermit crab’s adoptive home) might be deemed as somehow “lower” than that of a crab, the “higher” and “lower” find a common connection within the life cycle of a hermit crab.

This taps into “as above, so below,” the essence of the spiritual path for the true seeker. Each and every Master throughout history found the value of the hermit stage for their spiritual growth, even though Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha (for only three) wandered through an actual wilderness in their various hermit phases, much like a hermit crab searches for a new home as it outgrows the old.

Another way to consider the energetics for this month can be seen in the symbol for Aries itself:

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a downward plunge framed by the symbology of the Ram’s horns. Part of us wants to emulate the Ram and charge boldly forward with the changes of the new season, but an oasis of calm also beckons - an urge to withdraw.

The Aries glyph also evokes the activities associated with agriculture, where farmers need to poke however deep down to plant their seeds. The planted seed can thus be seen as the hermit stage for future potentials, a soaking-in of the fertile surroundings in the dark and the deep, working with the inherent wisdom of our DNA. Without this necessary downward plunge, nothing ever grows upward or bears fruit. Imagine a plant with a taproot - a root that grows straight down like that of a carrot plant - the Aries glyph can be seen here as well.

The last week of March and the first week of April is a busy two week stretch, but an ideal time to catch the subtle clues coming at us for the next big thing, Saturn’s exact oppositions with Prometheus (Uranus) starting later this year, and continuing on well into 2011.

First, Mercury is moving at full-steam again from it’s retrograde cycle of last month, and passes Venus on March 24. Mercury overtakes both asteroid Vesta and Prometheus on March 27, telling us quite plainly that change (Prometheus) begins at home (Vesta). Venus follows suit over Vesta and Prometheus the next day, and Vesta (Goddess of the Hearth Fire) herself passes over Prometheus on the 28th as well.

All of that activity, as well as the equinox and Full Moon, happens while Prometheus crawls through 20° Pisces. Rudhyar writes of this degree as “An indication that in the end and at the appropriate time the individual’s needs will be met among those to whom he is linked by a spiritual (or biological) web of energies.” Doesn’t a “spiritual web of energies” sound like a global meditation? Just ignore the gender specific pronoun - our needs will be met if we’re working with this energetic correctly.

March 27 and 28 would therefore be a wonderful opportunity to make an inward withdrawal, and look at what changes (Mercury/Prometheus) are needed to beautify (Venus) our inner home fire (Vesta) in order to flow with the inevitable changes that are coming. Mercury, Venus, and Vesta light up the creative and radical side of Prometheus, especially for those of us on the path to becoming agents for positive change.

On esoteric levels, Mercury (our intellect) finds a higher-level connection with Prometheus as the creative inventor. Mercury leads this mini parade over Prometheus the last week of March, telling us we have a brain for a reason, we just need to use it. More accurately, if we keep our minds wide open, the Winged Messenger can relay important messages from our source in order to create a better reality. Venus and Vesta lend a Divine Feminine touch to the proceedings, urging us to keep things quiet and harmonious as we meditate on what kind of future we want to co-create.

Mercury, Venus, and Vesta are therefore seen as trying to teach us how to make friends with Prometheus, a radical combination of Che Guevara, Thomas Edison, and Leonardo Da Vinci - all wrapped into one entity. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to be on the beneficial side of such a force? This tide will be carrying us into facing 2012 without fear, while living in fear will be a guarantee when the good professor Saturn catches the unaware off guard - folks who fear the change of evolving.

Mercury enters Aries on April 2, bringing in a two-week stretch where our minds can gain a clarity that Mercury in Pisces doesn’t afford, especially now that Mercury is at full speed since it’s very interesting retrograde cycle of January through mid March. Were any outside-the-box concepts formulated in the past couple of months? Mercury in Aries encourages us to turn those radical ideas into an inventive reality (Prometheus), despite or because of the other stuff happening in the here and now.

April 2 is also when Pluto stops to move retrograde, a little more than two months after moving into Saturn-ruled Capricorn. Capricorn in turn rules over large institutions like the banking and financial industries, and because Pluto will slip back into Sagittarius from June to November, we’ve only been getting a taste of what Pluto in Capricorn means for us. One thing is for certain, the old ways of doing business are no longer serving us as individuals, nor those same large institutions. Jupiter entered Capricorn as well this past December, and some people who were living too large (Jupiter) have found themselves in credit trouble (Pluto rules wealth) with get-rich-quick investors who are a little too Jupiterian themselves.

Interestingly, major asteroid Juno has been sneaking up on Pluto lately, and will be turning retrograde herself later in April within two degrees of a retrograde Pluto. Look for partnerships and marriages (Juno) to undergo some form of transformation (Pluto) in the following weeks and months. This will be occurring on personal (if not subtle) levels with significant others, business relationships, as well as international treaties and alliances - all either solidifying, breaking apart, reaching out to new partners, or arriving at different levels of understanding. Be on the watch for high-profile divorces, corporate take-overs and collapses, separatist movements and the ensuing clamp-downs - it’s already happening. Counselors, mediators, and diplomats should be seeing a spike in business between now and the end of the year.

Further squabbling comes to us courtesy of an approaching Ceres/Saturn square at the New Moon of April 5. Ceres moves into talkative Gemini (March 29) after a prolonged ten-month stay in Earthy Taurus. With Earth Mother Ceres square a retrograde Saturn in Earthy Virgo, the debate (Gemini) on agricultural issues and global warming is sure to heat up, and there will probably be some sort of disruption in the food supply, most likely with grain (Ceres) crops - ethanol vs. food, for instance.

Also at the busy New Moon of April 5, both Mars and Jupiter are square the Sun and Moon as Mars begins moving into an exact opposition with Jupiter in late April. Fortunately this will be a once-off-and-done opposition as Mars doesn’t start another retrograde cycle until December 2009. Also in late April, Mars will be moving into a trine with Prometheus, square to Venus, and inconjuncts to Chiron and Neptune - yikes! Meanwhile, Mercury, the Sun, and later Venus will take turns forming the third point of a Grand Trine with Saturn and Pluto, with the Full Moon as a kite focus on April 20. Not to mention Vesta entering Aries or Saturn stopping to move direct. Fortunately for me at this time, a bulk of these complexities happen after the Sun has moved into Taurus, so hopefully I’ll have a better idea as to what it will all mean by then.

Hint: the Scorpio (ruled by Pluto) Full Moon of April 20 should be a very interesting time as the Wheel of Fortune card is revealed! Just remember that the New Moon of April 5 calls for an inward withdrawal and avoid the urge for rash decision making, but don’t ignore whatever creative juices have been simmering on the back burner.

May the Wheel turn in our favor

The Progressive Universe:
How it all works

Astrology is not a exact science because we humans have free will - a demon allowing us to deny the essence of our nature, making us prone to do things that are not in our best interest. And if astrology were a merely science, we’d be doomed to stay indoors when a “bad Moon” was on the rise. In reality, there’s no such thing as a “bad” Moon, just poorly performing emotional states.

The Law of Correspondences rules astrology: “As above, so below. As within, so without. As the Universe, so the Soul.” A corollary to this is: “The plan is that there is no plan, but there is a design.” This speaks to our birthright of utilizing our free-will based on the design of our natal charts - a snapshot of the Universe at the moment of birth. The problem with this design is that every planet, sign, house, aspect, etc. each has many numerous meanings, and any number of ways to interpret them.

And then we have to consider that all the planets are constantly moving and changing their relationships with one another. Cycles repeat themselves, but are always in a different context. The inner planets (Sun and Moon through Jupiter) move relatively quickly and their transits are over and done with before we know it. But then there are the outer planets (Saturn through newcomer, Eris) who are moving so slowly, that they effect our cultures and societies in ways that can have dramatic consequences over a long period of time.

Yes, the future looks bleak, and things can get more dreadful than they already are, but by looking more objectively at what the planets are trying to tell us, I can’t help but be very impressed with the enormous possibilities for positive change in the very near future. The key will be to realize (to make real) our ability to create a sunnier future by utilizing our free will - our birthright - to become the creator Gods and Goddesses we intuitively know we are.

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Progressive Astrology: How the planets are on our side for social action and positive change

While no one can accurately predict the future (too many humans exercising their free-wills), there are always clues from the past to show us potentials for what the future may look like, in this case Saturn’s historic oppositions to Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Those of us over 50 were eye-witnesses to the partile (exact) Saturn oppositions to Uranus, Pluto, and Neptune (in that order) from 1965 - 1972, and the current and future oppositions of Saturn to Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus (in this order), from 2001 - 2010. These seven and nine-year mini-eras have been (and are) truly exceptional in that they didn’t occur exactly in this order in the last millennia, within such short periods of time, but the closest example of this to be seen over a roughly similar time span was from 1463 - 1470, and from 1501 - 1510. The only difference was Saturn’s partile oppositions to Pluto and Uranus were switched in the 1460’s as “opposed” to the splitting-hairs month of April 1965.

Saturn’s teaching methods of the 1460’s was to fast-forward the Italian Renaissance, and saw Da Vinci beginning his apprenticeship. Copernicus, Michelangelo, Raphael were soon after born, and the Renaissance spread throughout Europe. In the first decade of the 16th century, the Saturn oppositions saw Martin Luther becoming a priest, and Henry VIII becoming King of England, which helped jump-start the English Renaissance. In between these mini eras, Columbus and da Gama were discovering “new” worlds, much like the Hubble telescope and the Human Genome Project have since the 1990’s.

If we can successfully change the “Great Malefic” into the “Great Teacher,” I see no reason why we can’t help create the next Renaissance with thousands, if not millions, of new Da Vinci’s going through their apprenticeships at this time. Of course, we’ll need enlightened geopolitical leadership and highly motivated benefactors to make it happen, but with the Internet and global communications, the next Renaissance can happen virtually overnight.

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How astrology can help us turn things around, Part One

I am not an optimist by nature, and it is so difficult to be rosy about the present and future if we’ve been paying close attention to what’s been going on in the world.
Despondency can sink in and rob us of whatever little control we think we have over our lives, and we worry about the somnambulism of our fellow citizens as their “Support our Troops” yellow ribbons start looking more and more like nooses and garrotes.

What to do? For starters, remember back to the early days of our current malaise - I mean, administration. Essentially, we were told something like, “We’ll create the reality around here. You people in the reality-based world will be left out.” Why does this sound familiar? Oh yeah, the early days of the New Age movement were chock-full of books about how we can create our own reality, and it looks like the Rove/Faux News crowd have mastered the art. Unfortunately, too many Americans have swallowed their propaganda hook, line, and sinker, and the fear-driven machine rolls on.

It may sound too simplistic, but I see the only way to combat this paradigm is to adopt it and tweak it. What I mean by this is to adopt the belief that we can truly create our own reality, ignore their messages, and to (-tweak-) eliminate fear from our lives - the fear “they” want us to own. This is not an easy task, or as simple as it may sound, but it just might be the answer we’ve been looking for.

Eliminating fear from our lives involves knowing everything about where our fears come from, which of our emotional buttons get pushed in order to keep us in fear, and coming to a better understanding of the word itself. Basically, we fear what we don’t understand, fear is the mother of violence, violence completes the partial mind, and inevitably, fear kills. FDR said it best: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

It is therefore essential to know what the opposite of fear is: love. More specifically, the opposite of fear, and everything that surrounds it, is an unconditional love for our selves, and for our true self-identities. This is the ego-less love that was adopted and invoked by the likes of ML King, Gandhi, and other devotees of the true Christ Consciousness, which should never be confused with NeoCon Evangelism.

This is perhaps the main reason I do not have an eternally optimistic world view, because it is simply too unrealistic to assume that each of us are capable of loving our selves without condition at all times. We have become insidiously conditioned and brainwashed to believe that we are somehow incomplete human beings if we are not young, beautiful, rich, etc., or have the latest cell phone and wireless plan. It seems virtually impossible to love our selves completely - no matter what - but this is unquestionably the path of the true hero. Selfless (ego-less) heroism is what is being called for these days, and for the immediate future of our species.

By fully utilizing the birthright of our free wills, we can indeed move mountains. Gandhi and Martin Luther King (for only two) have already proven this. Their recipe for success? Their well-documented ego-less spiritual paths. While both men were theists, they were also humanists dedicated to removing the chains of their respective peoples for the betterment of all of humankind. In other words, they utilized their free wills to own the Law of Correspondences which states: As above, so below.

This just happens to be the Law that governs astrology (was that a sneaky segue or what?!?), and I honestly do see some reasons for hope in the near future. Of course, the future involves our imaginations and intentions, so it would really help to have a clear focus on what that “castle in the sky” looks like. This way, we’ll have better ideas for how to build the foundation necessary to reach it, and make it all real.

Trust me, the planets are a Progressive’s best friends these days, but only if we learn to treat them as such. The planets to consider are the outer ones: Saturn, Uranus/Prometheus, Neptune, Pluto, and newcomer Eris, one of the so-called Kuiper Belt Objects. We can expect newer planets to be discovered soon, so I’ll reserve my right to have an incomplete report here.

The key planet to monitor and respect is Saturn because he’s the outermost visible (to the naked eye) planet, and his orbit correlates so closely with how we personally view our inner abilities for maneuvering such weighty matters as maturity and responsibility, and/or our personal inability to deal with our inner and outer parental/authority figures. Saturn’s teaching style is simultaneously inner and outer, depending on our level of mental and spiritual maturity, and so far, this current administration has had a lock on Saturn’s global ramifications. Read on please to see how we can turn it around..

These outer physical bodies (Saturn through Eris) move so slowly that their effects on us humans are more global in scope than the inner planets’ daily and weekly influences are. Specifically, the outer planets’ relationship with each other has been, and will continue to be, critical to follow to know about significant long-term trends, and how we humans can shape these trends for the betterment of all of us in political, social, economic, and spiritual ways.

First, a quick reference guide for what each planet means and represents, from inner to outer:

• Saturn, The Great Malefic - or, the Good Professor - depending on how well we’re dealing with personal responsibility, authority figures, rules, structure, “maturity” (whatever that means), and learning the big lessons.

• Uranus, AKA Prometheus - the Bringer of Fire: Invention, revolution, sudden change, creativity on an industrial scale (not to be necessarily confused with “Big Industry”). Destructive if we’re being nihilistic, or productive like the beneficial fire of electricity:

• Neptune, Ruler of the Oceans and the Cosmos: Spirituality, illusions/delusions, glamour, our inner connection with the Divine, “the larger picture.”

• Pluto: Ruler of the Underworld (not to be confused with the Christian concept of “hell”): Death and rebirth, wealth, karma - the big shadow.

• Eris, Goddess of Discord: The end of karma, paying off karmic debts as individuals so that we can own our karmic responsibilities to clean up the big mess. Discord, with her discovery in 2003 and elevation to planet status in 2006? The planet is discovered when humanity is “ready” to acknowledge and understand its’ meaning on a collective level.

(For a major clue about how we maneuver the future, consider the following: Former asteroid Ceres, the Goddess of Agriculture and Nurturing, was also elevated to “dwarf” planet status last Summer. Ceres and Eris join the Moon and Venus as archetypal feminine energies for our collective psyche, generating more of a universal gender equity. The Universal Divine Feminine has returned in a major way, and she’s pissed! This is neither an endorsement for, nor an indictment against Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, et al, but some things just can’t be ignored.)

Saturn’s orbit of roughly thirty years gives us generational lessons to learn as he touches and opposes the other outer planets. Because Uranus/Prometheus, Neptune, and Pluto have been bunched together in the same quadrant (one quarter of the sky) the past fifty-plus years, Saturn has touched and opposed each outer planet twice, or will soon. While this might not seem significant, it is if you know how rare this is - very. For a much broader perspective of what I’m talking about, I’d suggest reading Richard Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche. (1)

The aspect I find most intriguing is Saturn’s oppositions with each of the other outer planets. Saturn, Prometheus, and Neptune have very predictable (round) orbits of the Sun, and therefore have fairly predictable cycles. We can then look to the past to see how future oppositions may play out. Pluto’s orbit of 248 years is elliptical, yet still retains a bit of (un)predictability. All of these Saturn oppositions seem to pull the energetics of each planet apart - the ultimate art of deconstructionism - and a clueless humanity either falls apart BECAUSE of the oppositions, or we collectively reach new heights by activating our free-wills to BE THE CAUSE of positive change.

This causal relationship between all of us and the outer planets demands that we open up a dialogue with them in order to successfully navigate their challenges. Otherwise, we would be surrendering our birthrights of free will and an ego-less unconditional love for our selves, and become the victims that we intuitively know we’re not.

The main astrological reason for optimism concerning current events and the near future is quite complex, and will require a journey in our time machine, back to five hundred years ago. At present, the Saturn oppositions to Pluto, Neptune and Prometheus (in that order from 2001 through 2010), and the Saturn oppositions to Prometheus, Pluto and Neptune (in that order from 1965 to 1972), happened in almost the same exact orders they occurred in from 1465 to 1471, and from 1501 to 1511. This might not sound too impressive on its own, but no other forty-plus year cycle was nearly as comparable in intensity, as it is to now and 500 years ago, in all of the last millennium. Not even close.

Five hundred and forty plus years ago began with the Italian Renaissance, the works of Da Vinci, the birth of Copernicus, etc., and forty years later culminated in the births of the Protestant Reformation and Henry VIII. These in turn led to the English Renaissance and sowed the seeds for the Ages of Enlightenment and Reason. In other words, the Dark Ages were being shut down, and Western Civilization was busy separating church from state.

We’re currently being reminded of the European Renaissance of 500 years ago, as well as of the energetics of the mid Sixties and early Seventies - a Renaissance in its own right. Those eras are returning to us on subconscious levels, and it is clearly no accident. Our souls are back from those times to scream out “Never again!” to the forces of darkness and the misguided intentions of unenlightened “leaders.” This is essentially the voice of the modern Progressive movement, no? There’s also a growing sense that, with our newest communication technologies, this next Renaissance can happen virtually overnight.

Not convinced? Consider some parallels between then and now. Gutenberg’s printing press was invented only a generation before the beginning of that era, and the Internet and cell phones have been in place for not even half of our current generation. Columbus and Da Gama were discovering new worlds, just as the Apollo Space Program, Hubble telescope, and the Human Genome Project have been in our current era. The Church/State combo was busy trying to shut down science and free thought with the Spanish Inquisition, much like Attorney General (Torture Czar) Torquemada Gonzalez, and the Bronze Age theocrats and Evangelical horde of today have been (stem-cell research, free speech, etc.). At least our ancestors of the 16th century had largely abandoned the idea of leading any more Crusades against the Middle East, unlike the you-know-who of today.

I can just hear a collective “So what?” The news here is that we’re not finished with our current outer planetary oppositions, which can be very reminiscent of the final phase of 500 years ago. The finale is coming up between 2008 and 2010 with Saturn making a series of oppositions to Prometheus, starting sooner than we realize. What I’m sensing with this next Renaissance is one that is specifically a marriage of spirituality and science - not a corruption of science by Religion (for example the ridiculous claims of “Intelligent Design”) - more of an awareness of the divine angels to be found within quantum mechanics, and/or the Universal Divine Feminine (peace, love, harmony, justice) erupting from the collective subconscious.

This has already begun in astrology with the discovery of new planet Eris, and the elevation of former asteroid Ceres to planet status. Other celestial feminine objects like asteroid Pallas Athene (Protectoress of the city of Athens) may follow Ceres’ elevation in our collective psyche, or perhaps Sedna, the Kuiper Belt object named for the shape-shifting mermaid of Inuit myth, will.

While I’m at it, please allow me to open a few cans of worms. We’re just five years away from the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Geologically, this isn’t five years, months, or weeks away - it’s now. There has been countless speculation for what this means for our species and planet, from the absurd to legitimate scientists saying: “Yup, something’s gonna happen.” As I see it, there are four things for us to think about today, before Saturn moves into opposition with Prometheus (Uranus), and these involve curves - all of which had been gently moving along upward over the past few centuries - but are currently pointing straight up.

1. The human population curve. The total number of human beings on this planet has doubled in the past 50 years, and is expected to double (or triple, depending on who you ask) again once the toddlers of today are finished making babies of their own, essentially in less than one or two generations.

2. Simultaneously, about 40 plant and animal species are becoming extinct every day, the largest mass extinction in over 65 million years. (2)

3. Global temperatures as depicted in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Oy.

4. The “Jumping Jesus” curve. First explained to me in a lecture given by Robert Anton Wilson in 1999, this involves the total lump-sum of human knowledge, which will be doubling nearly EVERY DAY by the year 2012.

This last point/curve is best seen with scientific discoveries and technologies involving communication, information, nanotechnology, etc., and is perhaps the most intriguing (to me at least) for what might be happening in the next five years. In the first three curves, we can clearly see that our species is committing suicide, and taking every other species down with us.

No matter what we do, or how consciously we live our lives, we are all contributors of greenhouse gases. We can do what we can to reduce our carbon output, but in the end, we’ll need the dedicated will of enlightened global leadership to take drastic steps to keep us from plummeting over the edge. Fat chance as long as Exxon/Mobil and Haliburton own the White House, however more and more cities and towns around the world are adopting the Kyoto Treaties on their own, so there is hope in this regard. When the people lead, the leaders will follow. Local organizing for mini-Kyoto’s everywhere is more important than we realize at this time. Keep this in mind, or else we’ll all go stark raving mad.

One prevalent prediction about 2012 is that there will somehow be a splitting-off of a parallel universe. This is appealing so long as my enlightened friends and I are on the correct side, although no one is saying much about how this will manifest. It also reeks of divine intervention and is an intellectually lazy thing to hope for, unless of course if it involves the fundamentalist Rapture myth, or the Church of the SubGenius’ Rupture scenario. Either way, it’ll be time for a serious party!

The thought of a parallel Universe also appeals if we truly believe that we can create our own reality. In many ways, “they” have already created one reality - “their” reality - a surrealistic melange of twisted truths, red herrings, and outright lies, so what’s to stop us from creating a reality of our own? A reality full of truths, about how everything is connected for instance? A reality where all living things are valued, and the dignity of all oppressed people does a U-turn and stands up for our birthrights of unconditional love for ourselves and all other species, made manifest by and through an ego-less free will?

Imagine a world where we simply ignore the NeoCon agenda and Corporate dream-shapers. Imagine a world that doesn’t live in fear. What would “they” do if we ignored “them” completely? What if “they” gave a war and nobody showed up? Again, fear is what “they” expertly utilize in trying to control us, so if we cut off this connection - in every possible way - “they” can do us no harm whatsoever, and a parallel Universe may indeed “just happen” to split off.

As John Lennon sang during the last Saturn/Neptune opposition: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you will join us, and the world will be as One.” Imagine that! Imagination is also one of our birthrights, and one that we too often willingly throw away to the corporate/political dream-shapers. For a fuller exposition of this “genocide of the imagination,” I’d highly suggest reading Rob Brezsny’s “Pronoia is the Antidote For Paranoia, How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings.” (Frog Ltd, 2005). Back to the present and future.

Science and technology have been entering uncharted territory, and this provides us with even greater hope. Newer and more promising inventions are being developed as I type and as you read, and a lot of them involve renewable sources of electricity such as geothermal, wave, tide, wind, solar, new battery technologies, etc., and all are increasingly becoming investment opportunities for forward-thinking rich folks. Electricity may never be truly free of charge (nice pun!), but at least the generation of this electricity won’t be filling the skies, earth and water with CO2, or with the Earth full of uranium-seeking holes.

On the political front (as if this offers any hope at all), Saturn will first oppose Uranus/Prometheus exactly on November 4, 2008 - Election Day. The push/pull of authority (Saturn) versus the Mother of Invention (Prometheus) has had pessimists (”real”-ists? Nah!) predicting martial law impositions, canceling the elections due to a preconceived and draconian “emergency” by the NeoCon secret government, but this doesn’t have to happen - not by a long shot. Again, this will involve eliminating fear from our lives, and owning our birthrights of unconditional (ego-less) love for ourselves, and for our species and planet.

Remember and rely upon the fact that the Universal Divine Feminine (love, peace, harmony, cooperation, justice) is a spiritual force that is emerging from our collective unconscious, whether we are currently aware of it or not. It’s in fact inevitable, or at least we can create the reality that it is. It would be much wiser for each of us to awaken to it and embrace it, before “they” co-opt it as their own.

Each Saturn/Prometheus opposition throughout history has produced revolutionary changes of many different kinds. These happen every 42 - 44 years or so, the last one occurring in 1965 - 1967, a well documented few years of political, social, artistic, and cultural upheavals. Saturn was opposed both Prometheus and Pluto in the Sixties, and the upcoming opposition will be Saturn and Prometheus opposed by themselves. If you’ve been sensing energetics returning from the Sixties and early Seventies, the outer planets would be the reason why - it’s only different because they’ve been occurring at different times this decade, and so much has changed since 1972.

Saturn has already opposed Pluto from 2001 - 2003 (the rise of W, 9/11, Enron, the wars starting), and the Saturn/Neptune opposition has only recently lifted, having been strongest in effect from August 2006 to July 2007 (all those Evangelicals caught with their pants down, the Congressional elections, the oxymoronic “Holy Wars,” etc.). The Saturn/Prometheus opposition has yet to happen, so I won’t be predicting a similar chaotic nihilism that transpired from 1965 - 1967. The Saturn/Neptune opposition concluded that era, and helped spawn the “Me Generation,” which devolved into narcissistic Yuppies driving their Beemers to cocaine-fueled discos. Greed somehow became fashionable.

However, that era also gave birth to the New Age movement - an eclectic merging of old and new spiritual thought and practices. This has since evolved into a growing alternative spirituality sub-culture, and this has been an important development to think about. The last I heard, there were thirty million Americans who described themselves as being Evangelicals, and twenty million of us who consider ourselves to be “Alternative.” We’re catching up, all without a shred of proselytizing. (Are any candidates pandering to us? Hmmm, not so much.)

Coming from the other end of the spectrum are the Sciences themselves in new theories of Quantum Physics, evolutionary astrophysics (the “above”), as well as the mapping and manipulation of the Human Genome (the “below”). Their mind-blowing conclusions are better explained elsewhere, but in a nutshell, these people have unconsciously (?) been entering the realm of the mystic. This represents the ending/return of a very significant cycle, whereas the Renaissance of 500 years ago brought about the Age of Reason and the ensuing split between spirituality/religion and scientific thought. The universe became mechanical with different parts disassembled and kept separate back then. Hooda thunk scientists would be currently saying what the mystics have been saying all along, that “everything is connected”?

So, Saturn will be in the “personal” sign of earth-y Virgo from 2008 - 2010, while Prometheus has been in the “global” spiritually deep waters of Pisces since 2003, and their face-off is right around the corner. This should, SHOULD lead toward an era of “We” instead of “Me,” for the simple reason stated in the truism “Necessity is the mother of invention.” No other outer planet represents invention and creativity better than Prometheus.

Virgo is often depicted as a Ceres-like archetype, and it should be seen as highly significant that the asteroid Goddess of Agriculture and Nurturing (sustainability) was elevated to planet status last Summer. Modern astrologers give Ceres rulership of Virgo, or at least co-rulership along with Chiron, the Wounded Healer planetoid. Saturn in Virgo is guaranteed to be the Great Malefic for the Bronze Age theocrats and flat-earth types (the deniers of global warming and the enemies of sustainability), while Prometheus will be on the other side of our solar system just begging for the creative class to come up with new inventions and livable paradigms.

As mentioned above, previous Saturn/Prometheus oppositions (SPO’s) have led to revolutions and upheavals, but also to great and necessary inventions - the discovery (and misnaming) of Uranus itself happened in 1781 during one such cycle. This was also at the end of the American Revolution, and the beginnings of the French and Industrial Revolutions - again, the planet is discovered when humanity is “ready” to receive its energetics.

The planet is discovered when humanity is ready for it’s energetics, and along comes Eris - the Goddess of Discord - discovered just four short years ago - way out there beyond Pluto. If Pluto represents death and rebirth (individual and collective karma), Eris symbolizes what lies beyond karma, telling humanity that it is time to wrap up our collective karmic debts with our own planet, and begin to own up to our collective karmic responsibilities. Eris represents the end of karma, and on subconscious levels, many of us are beginning to realize that this is our last chance to figure out why we’re all here, and what our karmic responsibilities might be.

The choices are being made clearer every day: Do we fight to preserve all of life, or just ourselves and our myopic desires? Do we just give up and let “them” win? Do we just lie down and surrender?

“They” don’t quite seem to realize yet that a hot and dry planet makes their wealth and power evaporate like so many glaciers. “They” don’t seem to acknowledge that their actions (or inaction) are only generating really bad karma for themselves. We get the feeling that “they” don’t seem to care so much about this last bit, but I for one, and many others of us, do. This is what makes us Progressives, no?

So, which comes first, the global energetics unleashed by outer planetary oppositions, or creative types consulting their astrologers to predict long-term meaningful trends? You tell me. I’m not a scientist or a design engineer, but if you are, you have been foretold and forewarned that an evolutionary leap in creativity is directly on the horizon. If you are working for social change and justice, here’s your opportunity as well. If you are planning a violent revolution or domestic terrorism, please don’t tell me or I’ll be forced to release the flying monkeys.

Let the examples of Martin Luther King and Gandhi be our guides toward an unconditional and ego-less love for ourselves and all species, and just maybe the avatars of Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison will show up with that one gadget that will put the fossil fuel industry out of business forever.

Peace

(1) Cosmos and Psyche, Richard Tarnas, Plume, 2006.

(2) Source: American Institute of Biological Studies, from Rob Brezsny’s “Pronoia is the Antidote For Paranoia.” (Frog Ltd. 2005)

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Sun in Scorpio, October 23 - November 22

If we are owning our evolved selves, we will recognize that we are standing on the shoulders of giants - those souls who have come before us and inspired us to become who we are today. If we can turn this current Mercury retrograde into a source of strength - by thinking way outside the box (and eventually knowing that there is no box!) - we’ll begin to realize (to make real) that we have become the giants that our inspirational forebears had urged us to become. We’ll then begin to know that we have become our own giants - the giants of the here and now - and that in the here-and-now moments of today and tomorrow, we get the chance to stand on our own shoulders.

This is called evolving - moving forward and blazing new trails into uncharted territory - with only an occasional look backward (with a smile!) to see how far we’ve come, and to briefly touch base with our past inspirations for further guidance. And hopefully, we learn how to inspire each other to greater heights of awareness.

The Emperor card of the tarot is in our sights this month, and we get a few rare opportunities to figure out who the true Emperor is. Us as individuals - our evolved selves - or someone else as usurpers to our own thrones. The choice is always ours, within each and every here-and-now moment, to move forward, own our evolved selves, and become our own Emperors.

The planetary ownership of the Emperor card would ordinarily be argued for either Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn. However, Mars is slowing down to move retrograde exactly November 14 while Mercury is still within it’s retrograde shadow. We’ll be monitoring Mars as he goes nappy-time, and give our inner warriors a chance to reflect on the various wars within ourselves, and heal our sundry battle scars. We’ll also be getting a better idea of who on the global stage is working for world peace, and who is working their inner Mars’ incorrectly.

Meanwhile, the Good Professor Saturn is loitering around the karmic classroom of the collective South Node, and about to move retrograde himself. Saturn is busy preparing his karmic syllabus to teach us many more lessons about why we’re all here, a Karma 101 for Freshmen, and a Karma 801 for Graduate studies - a five-year course for the serious student. Graduation ceremonies are scheduled for 2012, coinciding with the end of the Mayan calendar.

This leaves Jupiter in his ruling sign Sagittarius as the Emperor - the Emperor within each of us - our birthright of being the evolved Emperor of our own lives. Unlike the Scorpio overdose of last year at this time, this Sun in Scorpio is relatively clean and open-ended, with abundant opportunities to look elsewhere for inspiration, like Jupiter in his ruling sign for instance.

Scorpio was traditionally ruled by Mars until Pluto was discovered in 1930, in the midst of some of the most intense global power struggles, that eventually led to the even worsening power grabs of World War 2. The ancient myth of Pluto has him ruling the Underworld, and all that lies beneath, including the riches of oil and minerals (coal and uranium for example), as well as the birth/death/rebirth cycles of karma.

Do we really need more power struggles regarding oil, and other exhaustible resources of energy these days? Do we need to repeat the same conditions that existed before 1930? Do we have a choice? YES! In the past 77 years, Scorpio, for the collective inner warrior Mars, has been supplanted and progressed (evolved) by the much broader karmic questions that Pluto presents, as the ruler of why we fight in the first place. For Scorpio, this rulership shift has changed the “fly or fry” mentality of Mars into the “why do we need to see life as merely ‘fly or fry?’ Isn’t there a better way to behave?” Yup, and in this regard, Pluto rocks!

Halloween is the essence of Scorpio - a time when the veil is thinnest - and representations of the “living dead” (the Underworld that Pluto rules) wander our streets asking us the trick-or-treat questions of karmic law, either figuratively or literally. Are we tricking ourselves with delusions of past errors and terrors, and worn-out ways of thinking, or are we treating ourselves to a greater understanding and knowledge of such things, and hopefully moving well beyond these questions that keep us locked into our unevolved selves?

The Sun moving into Scorpio finds a retrograde Mercury swinging back over the Sun, a potentially intense time for surreal confusion among the unaware. Mercury turned retrograde the second week of October, and the usual warnings went out to pay better attention while driving, operating or (not) buying electronic devices, and to think twice about making any major life decisions. This one is slightly different as Mercury started off retrograde in Scorpio, slipping back into Libra October 24 before turning direct again November 1 (EDT).

Mercury stops to move direct just as the veil is at its’ extra crispiest, so some folks might be flailing about searching for the celebrated Libran balance. Venus rules Libra, and has recently moved out of her retrograde shadow. She’ll be moving into Libra on November 8, so some folks might be needing this extra time to find their way. Steer clear of folks who aren’t working this correctly.

The Full Moon of October 26 (EDT) is special in this regard for a variety of reasons. First because Lady Luna is at perigree - closest to the Earth - and at her fullest and brightest. This is the middle of three “Super Moons” of relatively equal brilliance, similar to last month’s Full Moon on September 26, and next month’s on November 24, shortly after the Sun enters Sagittarius.

Second, the Full Moon of October 26 is trine both Saturn and Pluto, reminding us of the fading Saturn/Pluto trine of this past August. This past Summer was a signal to release the energetic of the Saturn/Neptune opposition - at least a year-long process of rewiring our connection with our inner divinity. The previous Saturn/Pluto trine was in 1997 (remember peace and prosperity?), with the midpoint occurring during the Saturn/Pluto oppositions of 2001 - 2003 (9/11, the oxymoronic “holy wars,” etc.). It’s time to release those energetics as well.

Thirdly, this Full Moon of October 26 occurs just a few dozen hours before Pluto officially makes his third and final pass of the galactic center. This event will crystallize - or fall completely apart (the choice is ours!!!) - in December as Jupiter meets up with Pluto less than two and a half degrees from the enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy that lies beyond. This will be a once in a lifetime global energetic - a rare opportunity to completely align our selves with our source. It would be very wise to utilize these times correctly, that is, unless we enjoy having instant karma moments thrust upon us. Those should arrive in spades when Jupiter moves into Saturn-ruled Capricorn in December, and Pluto follows a month later.

The previous Jupiter/Pluto meeting was in Pluto’s turf (Scorpio) in 1994, and this upcoming Jupiter/Pluto summit is in Jupiter’s ruling sign Sagittarius. Jupiter/Pluto in “scary” Scorpio helped to launch the fear-driven careers of hate radio jocks, and other fear-mongering “news” pundits. The next few months will expose which Emperor has no clothes, so check your coats of false ego at the door.

The past sixteen months hasn’t been an easy stretch for many people, as discarding outmoded spiritual paradigms can be stressful at best, and painful at worst. The astrological reasons for this shifting might seem complex, but is actually very simple as I hope to point out: If not, I always welcome questions.

Allowing for an 8° orb of influence (close enough for the casual observer), there are currently no planets opposing spiritual Neptune, for the first time since June 22, 2006. That’s when much of this process began, and the first week of October was when we “should” have been aware it was all over. If we were approaching or surpassing success with this, we should have received a tap on the shoulder from our friends on the other side saying “Good job!”, or getting some other form of encouragement. If not, it’s never too late! Each moment offers a multitude of here-and-now opportunities to make it all real! Please read on.

For the unaware person, any planet opposing Neptune can expose the improper, inappropriate, and/or misguided spiritual workings of whichever planet is doing the opposing. For instance, warrior Mars first began approaching opposition with Neptune within 8° of exact at the Summer Solstice of June 2006. Things began to unravel for the hypocritical (a dysfunctional Mars) branches of the extremist wings of the “chicken hawks” of fundamentalism.

Next, the Good Professor Saturn began his year-long opposition to Neptune, exposing the lethal dangers of religious (Neptune) extremism (dysfunctional Saturn) everywhere else, and forced many people to wake up to the threat of global (Neptune) warming, despite what the anti scientific “authorities” (a dysfunctional Saturn) were espousing. Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.

Next, Venus picked up the opposition energetic to Neptune this past June, just as Saturn was concluding his opposition to Neptune. Venus then began her retrograde cycle back and forth, moving direct and away from 8° opposition exactly on October 4, and rejoined Saturn at the collective (Mean) South Node on October 13 at 5° Virgo. Finally, the Moon moved into opposition to Neptune (within 8°) October 5th and 6th, and the New Moon of October 11 added an exclamation point to the whole thing.

And now, Mars slows down to move retrograde in emotional Cancer exactly on November 14, but this energetic has been steadily building since the Sun has entered Scorpio on October 23. Basically, our planet friends have been telling us to lay down our weapons, and throw all of our efforts into the peaceful activities of saving our own planet from ourselves. It’s really that simple.

The usual suspects (”them”) will be trying to expand their War on Terra, but now that there are no planets opposing spiritual Neptune, the usual suspects SHOULD become increasingly glaring examples of how not to express the will of the Universe - the exalted wills of their own souls. Generating bad karma has become way too simple and easy for “them” and their greed-burdened allies. It’s really that simple as well.

As the Sun moves into Scorpio, Venus swings into opposition with Uranus (Prometheus) and begins to write the prologue for the astrological event of 2008, Saturn’s first exact opposition to Prometheus. Venus’ introduction to the Saturn/Prometheus oppositions (a roughly three-year process) reads like the Wiccan invocation of “first harm none.” The Princess of Peace is urging us to operate our lives out of love and compassion for the peaceful Promethean revolution we can create in the next few years.

Venus moves into her ruling sign Libra on November 8, and the New Moon of November 9 (at 18° Scorpio) would be a good time to work some serious woo-woo in this regard, as these events precede the Mars retrograde by just a few days. The Sabian symbol (1) for 18° Scorpio (”The exalted feeling of a work well done and a truly consummated life”) echoes our inner Emperor’s desire to own our evolved selves. Mars is station-retrograde (dead in the air) at 13° Cancer at this New Moon (”The power of the will in shaping character”), and once again we will be forced to deal with the content of our character.

The key word here is “will,” as in “free-will.” Free-will is our birthright, and we can shape our character any way we wish. An Emperor costume would make for an appropriate Halloween “as within, so without” statement, no? Mars moving retrograde is an admonition for us to be sure that we don’t become tyrants, and anyone acting like a monomaniac is clearly not working this energetic correctly.

The Sun/Moon (and Juno) conjunction of November 9 is one-third of a watery grand trine with Mars (in Cancer) and Prometheus (in Pisces), with a kite anchor/focus of a retrograde Ceres opposed the New Moon. Neglected (retrograde) Earth Mother Ceres sits halfway between the deer-in-the-headlights Mars and creative Prometheus for the duration of the month. With any luck, there will be increased pressure to end the War on Terra, and a retrograde Mars is the signal to lay down our wasteful weapons.

Prometheus is essentially dead in the air all month, and will be turning direct as the Sun enters Sagittarius. This positive development should help to germinate the inventive seeds within the creative class for the first half of 2008.

Let’s get down to business, shall we fellow Emperors?

(1) The Sabian symbols are from Dane Rudhyar’s “An Astrological Mandala.”

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SUN IN LIBRA, September 23 through October 23

Libra is well known for her scales of balance, but it’s too easily forgotten that those scales measure out justice. While we can’t distribute justice too far beyond our own reach, we can certainly dole out judgment for the only thing that is fully within our control, our own lives. The Empress card - the Nurturer - shows up to tell us that we need not beat ourselves up on Libra’s scales, and that any inner criticisms should be dealt with as an Earth Mother would, with plenty of tender loving care.

As always, there’s no better time than the here and now to accomplish this necessary healing work, and this is especially true this month as Venus moves out of her retrograde shadow while Mercury slows down in Scorpio to move retrograde - both in the second week of October. This Venus retrograde cycle has been about reconsidering the people and things we value, and perhaps even for redefining the term “self-esteem.” Mercury moving retrograde might catch us napping if we’re not careful or showing awareness, so clearing our minds of the psychic debris of the past will be called for. The voice of our inner judges might be heard to say: “Wake up and purify your intentions! Intellectual laziness will not be tolerated!” Well, at least my inner judge tends to talk that way, but we’re working on it,

The planetary judge is Saturn, who recently moved into Virgo after a twenty-five month journey through Leo. Over the past year, Saturn has been in and out of opposition to spiritual Neptune, and Saturn’s entry into Virgo has been a wake up call for us to wrap up whatever we’ve been working on, particularly in the arena of how we’ve been kidding ourselves in spiritual or illusionary (Neptunian) matters.

In Saturn’s Leo wake, Venus has been left behind in Leo to take up the energetic of the opposition to Neptune. Venus has moved out of her retrograde cycle to become the morning star, and is moving forward to regain her usual energy. Neptune can be seen as a higher vibrational version of Venus, and this is especially relevant as the myth of Venus has her being born from ocean (Neptune) foam. The Sun moving into Libra on September 23 sees Venus opposed Neptune within one degree of exact, and a soon to be retrograde Ceres dead in the air, square both.

This forms a T-square with Ceres as the focus. While Venus rules Libra, she’s not really the Earth Mother/Empress type. This label fits former asteroid and “dwarf” planet Ceres more precisely, and Ceres rules Virgo which Saturn just entered. Clashes between clueless mothers and daughters might be increasing at this time, but this can also be a rare opportunity for everyone involved to call a cease-fire, even us guys. Especially us guys. All we need to do is elevate our inner Earth Mother to Divine status, and think about ways to honor and help heal our Mother Earth while we’re at it.

Concurrently, the recently developing Mars/Pluto opposition (exact September 21) finds the Sun as the focus of another T-square, so all bets are off in mediating diplomacy. Mars will be turning retrograde himself in mid November, setting off a retrograde opposition to Pluto to start off the new year, and a direct opposition again in March 2008.

For the aware, this six month Mars/Pluto stand-off can be a process (starting now) of learning how an exalted warrior (Mars) can find honor in laying down his weapons in order to generate good karma (Pluto). For the unenlightened, a mindless money/power grab can and will generate bad juju. By the end of these Mars/Pluto oppositions in March 2008, Pluto will have moved into Capricorn which is ruled by Saturn, and monkey business of all sorts will crash headlong into instant karma moments. Clueless warriors are given this warning as the Sun moves into Venus-ruled Libra.

Mars then moves into emotional Cancer on September 28, and if your inner warrior is working this shifting energetic correctly, he can become a righteous defender of all that is good and correct. However, Mars himself turns retrograde in Cancer in mid November, so if we’re being overly defensive or melodramatic, we’ll simply lose the battle. Our greatest ally therefore will be our ability to be within the here and now - a place and time that always affords the best opportunity for supreme clarity - and benevolent guidance from our higher selves.

On the other hand, the Ceres T-square (formed by 90° angles to the Venus/Neptune opposition) is a much softer, yet no less urgent focus of where we should be expending our energies. Earth Mother Ceres will be moving retrograde through Earth-y Taurus until late December, causing our inner nurturers to reflect on matters of how we are (or aren’t) treating ourselves and our planet. For instance, this could be a heck of a nasty cold and flu season for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, while Summer in the Southern Hemisphere could see worsening droughts. Regardless of how it shakes out, global climate issues will be at center stage during the Ceres retrograde cycle.

A more immediate concern for this month is the aforementioned second week of October, when Venus moves out of her retrograde shadow and Mercury slows down to move retrograde. Venus will have returned to where she was when she turned retrograde this past July, to once again join up with Saturn in Virgo. We’ll be given a chance to scratch our heads and wonder what the heck has happened the past three months. Mercury simultaneously turning retrograde at that time won’t give us much of an opportunity to make much sense of it, but we can certainly be reinforcing the value of being in the here and now.

The “here and now” clarity will be necessary if we want to take full advantage of Jupiter in his ruling Sagittarius, finally picking up steam and gaining momentum after his retrograde cycle (the doldrums) since this past April. Jupiter will be catching up to Pluto in December (exact December 11) for the first time since December 1994. Thirteen years ago this happened on Pluto’s turf of Scorpio, and the upcoming conjoining will be on Jupiter’s terms in Sagittarius. Specifically, this reunion will be happening in the latter degrees of Sagittarius, also known as the center of our galaxy

Major transformational events and a re-learning of Universal truths can happen for us at that time, but only if we’re preparing for it this next month - starting in the here and now with the Sun in Libra. We’ll have to be on the alert for troubles in financial markets as Jupiter moves through a square to Uranus/Prometheus for much of October, but if we can avoid this panicky Muggle mind-set and keep our minds’ eye on the bigger picture, non-physical rewards await.

Don’t look for much help at the full Moon of September 26. This monthly Sun/Moon opposition forms a Grand Cross with the Mars/Pluto opposition. If we’re feeling drawn and quartered at that time, you will not be alone. Be here now.

Focusing on the New Moon of October 11, the usual time for new beginnings, much of the Mars/Pluto edginess will have dissipated, only to be replaced by the beginning of the Mercury retrograde joyride. If we can think outside the box, or better yet - imagine that the box doesn’t even exist - we’ll be okay. Our imaginations and communications with the Spirit world work best in (you guessed it) the here and now.

As the Sun moves toward it’s annual entry into Scorpio the third week of October, a retrograde Mercury will be in full bloom as Venus and Mars make happy for a short while with a sextile (60° apart), forming the foundation of a Yod (the Finger of God - two uncomfortable inconjuncts) to Wounded Healer Chiron. This is Chiron’s way of saying “Heal or squeal.” This rare configuration catches Mars - our inner warrior - at a disadvantage as he starts slowing down to move retrograde. Unfortunate in this case for the clueless warrior (Mars) who can’t see a good thing while he has it (sextile Venus). Venus - our inner lover - forges on direct, and only seems to be waving bye-bye, but she’ll be more than happy to help the enlightened warrior who has laid down his weapons in search of a better way of life.

Be here now. Give peace a chance. Make love, not war.

(Fade out your favorite song from the Sixties.)
SUN IN VIRGO, August 23 - September 23, 2007

To a lot of modern astrologers, Virgo is co-ruled by two relatively minor entities, new “dwarf” planet and former asteroid Ceres (the Goddess of Agriculture and Nurturing), and the planetoid Chiron, better known as the Wounded Healer. Taken together, there is nothing minor about their combined energetics. In an exalted manner, these two for Virgo represents growth (Ceres) through healing (Chiron), or even healing through growth. The flip-side could be seen as wounded (Chiron) agriculture (Ceres) at best, or at worst, a dying planet.

Two key allies, Mercury (intellect and communication from and to our source) and Saturn (responsibility and authority figures), will join together with the Sun in Virgo at least partially this month to help us figure out which energetic we’d like to see highlighted for ourselves and for our world. And the High Priestess Lady Luna will be performing as Saturn’s invaluable teaching assistant.

If necessity is the mother of invention, needs of all kinds will make themselves known to us in abundance this month. We can expect further issues to arise involving our obvious needs for clean air, food, and water, as well as the need to slow down global warming, however, we should also be prepared to expect the unexpected, and for the not-so-obvious needs to show up.

Are we ready for some major natural disasters and more examples of a crumbling infrastructure? Of course not. Do we know the difference between being reactive and being proactive? Maybe, we’ll see. Let’s dust off a truism from the Sixties that will show up in glaring and perhaps uncomfortable ways this month: If we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem.

Our inner Magician was hopefully being aroused this past month, and the Harry Potter overload could not have come at a more appropriate time. Sparks might not be flying off the ends of our wands just yet, but we can certainly learn about the Magick created from generating random acts of kindness, and senseless works of beauty. Otherwise, we could easily find ourselves sinking into the panicky Muggle mind-set that believes that the sky is always falling. Contrary to popular opinion, scientists are saying that the sky is actually rising. (1)

The Sun moves into Virgo (8/23) just ten days before the Good Professor Saturn (Dumbledore) follows suit (9/2). Good teachers don’t always tell us why they are leading us down paths of mystery - they fully expect us to discover some truths on our own - as they know that experience is always the best way to learn. Saturn’s syllabus for us is no less mysterious than Dumbledore’s education of Mister Potter’s was, but there are always clues for the serious student. Saturn will be moving through Virgo until July 2010, and if you think we’ve already been living in a pivotal time for our species and planet, we ain’t seen nothing yet. A bit of history would be in order.

Saturn moved into Leo in July 2005, and a month later hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast of the US. While natural disasters are a given for our planet, what happened next was Saturn busily exposing the incompetence of governmental agencies to be of much help in the rescue of the stranded, and the ensuing clean-up. In fact, parts of that area have remained untouched and unimproved more than two years later. Leo represents our individual and collective egos, and the ego-less desire of millions of people who wanted to help was being hampered by the bloated ego of a largely useless and corrupt bureaucracy.

Saturn then moved on to set up a year-long opposition to spiritual Neptune, and we were being forced to realign our Souls with our source. People who weren’t living within their own truths were digging a deeper hole for themselves, and are continuing to do so. The Saturn/Neptune opposition has recently concluded, and Saturn moves us into a new University where the learning lessons will continue, less about the Fire (Leo) and (in)stability (Leo = a fixed element) of Spirit, and more toward the shifting and changing (mutable) Earth of Virgo. Bronze Age theocrats and flat-Earth types simply won’t know what is about to hit them.

Another major clue about what Saturn in Virgo will look like can be seen at the total eclipse of the Moon on August 28 - the midpoint of the Sun’s ingress into Virgo on August 23, and Saturn’s entrance to Virgo on September 2. The Moon represents the High Priestess as we continue following the Major Arcana of the Tarot, and she’ll be darkened by the Earth’s shadow on the 28th at 5° Pisces. The imagery for the Moon at this event speaks of “Ritualized Beneficence.” (2) In other words, this eclipse will hopefully force us to look for ways we can perform volunteer/service work for the benefit of our communities, both locally and globally. (Check out taoofchange.com for ideas on how to become a more responsible consumer, and world citizen.)

Being a full Moon (on steroids) in Pisces, it helps to know what else is in Pisces, and less than seven degrees away is asteroid Goddess Pallas Athene - a High Priestess in her own right - and Uranus/Prometheus, less than 13 degrees away. The Parthenon was Pallas’ temple, and She protected and gave guidance to the city of Athens as its inhabitants were shaping Western democracy and philosophy, at a time when astronomy and astrology were not separate disciplines. Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to us humans. Keep these two deities in your minds and then move them into your hearts. Once there, they’ll hopefully conceive an inventive brain-child or two in no time.

At “odds” with the Moon at the lunar eclipse, yet significantly connected to it, is the imagery for the Sun at 5° Virgo on the 28th, 180° from the Moon. This image tells of an individual becoming aware of “normally unseen spiritual agencies,” and “the opening of new levels of consciousness.” (3) By meditating on this eclipse, the High Priestess Lady Luna will be showing us how to correctly maneuver the next few weeks, and believe it or not, the next few years.

Saturn moves into Virgo on September 2, retrograde Pluto stops at the galactic center to move direct on September 6, retrograde Venus stops to move direct on September 8, and there will be a partial solar eclipse on September 11 - the sixth anniversary of you-know-what. Earthquakes are not only inevitable - they happen every day somewhere - but we can expect the unexpected earth to be moving in any of several different ways, particularly throughout the first two weeks of September. Financial foundations are already in trouble as Saturn moves out of opposition with Neptune, and we can fully expect more examples of a collapsing infrastructure, natural disasters caused in some part due to human activity, and ruthless human activity to cause cracks in otherwise previously considered impermeable foundations.

We can’t run away and hide from these energetics, but we can find solid footing by utilizing our free will to seek guidance in order to find those more permanent and safer foundations. Remember that Virgo is an Earth sign, mutable as quicksand for the unenlightened individual living in fear of the unknown, but solid as a rock for the knowing. Being light on our feet will help us avoid falling into the fissures that might show up around us, especially as Saturn enters Virgo, but this will allow us to learn a new dance-step or two. Avoiding falling objects, in this case the ringed planet himself, may also be called for as well. Having a planet of his size bouncing off your head can get really messy, and is difficult to explain to the neighbors

The solar eclipse of 9/11/07 is particularly fraught with peril for the unaware, but so very useful for those of us who wish to become agents for positive change. The sixth anniversary of that horrible day will bring the usual candle-lit commemorations and moments of silence, as well they should. However, a focus much farther back in time, as well as into the near future, will help us to put a much greater context on these memorials, and other potentially frightening world events happening the first two weeks of September. Let the keeper of your inner Time Machine take you back to 1966, and onward to 2008 (and beyond) for these hints.

The partial solar eclipse of 9/11/07 will be happening at 19° Virgo, when the Moon passes close enough in front of the Sun to be called an eclipse, but not close enough to be a “perfect” total eclipse. Virgo is well known for not appreciating imperfections very well, but the High Priestess Moon seems to know a few things about how history repeats itself to not care if it’s an exact solar eclipse or not.

The Magician within each of us (respectful of the Good Professor Saturn’s teaching methods) knows of the benefits of learning from the past in order to not repeat the same mistakes in the present and future. In February 1966, Saturn was at 19° Pisces, and Uranus/Prometheus was opposite Saturn at 19° Virgo, where the partial Solar eclipse will set up on 9/11/07. What was happening back then? You name it - just about everything!

From a strictly American viewpoint, the illegal and unjustified war in Vietnam was meeting it’s first real opposition in student protests, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing, Women’s Liberation was in high (revolutionary) heels, the Environmental movement was rising as the “Summer of Love” began, etc. Saturn was not only opposed Uranus/Prometheus in 1966, but also Pluto at the same time, so in some ways, things seemed to be a lot more intense 41 years ago. “Then” was clearly a framework and foundation for “now.”

This was a midpoint of the last Saturn/Prometheus opposition, an astrological event lasting from 1965 - 1967 that helped shake-up much of what we knew about ourselves in our evolution as a species. Saturn/Prometheus oppositions throughout history have brought about many evolutionary and revolutionary breakthroughs, (see the footnotes below for descriptions of each), and then start thinking about 2012 and how the next three years will help shape the end of the Mayan calendar.

Why? The next Saturn/Prometheus opposition will happen exactly on November 4, 2008 (Election Day in the US) with Saturn at - you guessed it - 19° Virgo. Again, have no fear, the imagery for this degree talks of a swimming race: “The stimulation that comes from a group effort toward a spiritual goal.” (4) A spiritual goal, more specifically a communal/team goal, is what was happening for African Americans, Women, Environmentalists, and the hippie sub-culture during the mid Sixties, and can best be remembered by the songs “Come Together” by the Beatles, “Let’s Work Together” by Wilbur Harrison (and Canned Heat), and “Get Together” (”…come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now”) by the Youngbloods. Expect a revival of Thunderclap Newman’s “Something In The Air,” and the Plastic Ono Band’s “Give Peace a Chance” over this next year as the Saturn/Prometheus opposition begins to ramp up. Putting flowers in your hair will be optional.

The imagery for 19° Pisces (Prometheus’ position opposed Saturn 11/4/08) can be truly inspirational for would-be agents of positive change: “A Master instructing his Disciple. The transfer of power and knowledge which keeps the original spiritual and creative Impulse of the cycle active and undeviated.” (5) Notice the word “creative” - no other planet represents creativity and invention more so than Uranus/Prometheus.

It should be remembered that in 1966 Saturn was at this same degree (19° Pisces), and his teaching lesson was “Learn from this! End this senseless war. Clean up the environment, and treat everyone as equals. Your astronauts will soon be sending back pictures from the Moon of your tiny planet - your little island in space - to let you see how fragile and alone you really are!”

So, what have we learned in the past 41 years? From the looks of it, practically nothing, and virtually everything. Coming back to the solar eclipse of 9/11/07 - the New Moon on steroids at 19° Virgo - can be the wake-up call our species needs. Keeping our third-eyes as wide open as possible will allow us to see the bigger picture in what needs to be done, which forces are working for sustainability, and how we can each be doing our part.

Helping us tremendously is Jupiter in his ruling Sagittarius, picking up steam from his four month-plus long retrograde cycle. New projects can receive greater momentum or second winds, especially through to the end of the year. Of concern will be his opposition to Mars as the Sun moves into Virgo on August 23, and Mercury and the Sun will take turns being the focus of T-squares to the Mars/Jupiter opposition. Be careful that your inner teenager doesn’t wreck Daddy’s car.

Mars moves out of opposition to Jupiter the first days of September, only to be moving into opposition with Pluto beginning around the solar eclipse of 9/11/07. “They” might try to pull a fast one on us, but this shouldn’t deter us from keeping our focus on the much bigger picture. The 9/11 eclipse will be inconjunct Neptune, and a stationing (standing still) Venus will be inconjunct Uranus/Prometheus and opposed both Neptune and Chiron.

This may be a call for us to fight for inner stability on a somewhat more heroic scale, and could be a test of character for everyone. Of key importance will be our ability to eliminate fear at that time, as is always the case, but this one might feel unusually urgent. Again, remember the songs mentioned above, of working together in communal harmony, and then project forward into the next year, and see how you can help turn things around.

Last, but certainly not least, Virgo co-ruler Ceres (another High Priestess) has been slowing down to stop and move retrograde in Earth-y Taurus in September, just as Venus (yet another High Priestess!) starts to move direct. Earth Mother Ceres slows down and slumbers just as Venus returns from her nap behind the Sun, and arises with blood on her hands, looking for new “soft” targets like the flat-Earth obstructionist types who are bent on non-sustainable activities.

One High Priestess slowing down, and another (vengeful) High Priestess speeding up, powerful eclipses, planets changing direction, Saturn moving into Virgo… This month might just feel like a parallel universe is starting to pull away, so keep your eye on your inner seismographs and kick your fears in the butt with your new dancing shoes.

(1) “… The top of the troposphere, the atmosphere’s lowest layer, is slowly ascending.”

Rob Brezsny “Pronoia is the Antidote For Paranoia, How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings.” (Frog Ltd, 2005)

(2) Dane Rudhyar’s “An Astrological Mandala.” The Sabian symbol for 5° Pisces is “A Church Bazaar,” and represents the presence of God in even the most mundane of human material activities.

(3) ibid. “A man becoming aware of nature spirits and normally unseen spiritual agencies.” The keyword is “Imagination” which involves our ability to let go of our intellect in order to merge with the presence of a power greater than ourselves.

(4) ibid. The element of water is important to consider for 19° Virgo, as water symbolizes psychic and spiritual energies, and the “River of Life” always flows toward the ocean of our source. The swimming “race” shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a competition, but more of a communal progression of like-minded individuals striving for a successful outcome of their shared vision.

(5) ibid. If you don’t care for the words “Master” or “Disciple,” substitute them with “Great and Benevolent Teacher” and “Willing and Eager Student.” In this case, Prometheus can be showing us how to be creators of an inventive future.

Previous Saturn/Prometheus oppositions (SPO’s) have led to revolutions and upheavals, but also to great and necessary inventions - the discovery (and misnaming) of Uranus itself happened in 1781 during one such cycle. This was also at the end of the American Revolution, and the beginnings of the French and Industrial Revolutions. The planet is discovered when humanity is “ready” to receive its energetics.

Since then, the SPO of the late 1820’s brought us the locomotive and the development of railroading, and westward migration followed the Lewis and Clark trail laid down just a dozen years previously. This time also synchronistically saw the early education’s of Karl Marx, Henry David Thoreau, and Mary Baker Eddy, and soon after, Charles Darwin stepped aboard the HMS Beagle. Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy was born, as were the seeds that produced the Concord Transcendentalists.

The SPO of the mid 1870’s brought us the electric light bulb, telephone, phonograph. Cable cars - public transportation - began operating in San Francisco. These were the formative years of Mohandes Gandhi, Rudolf Steiner, and Vladimir Lenin, and Albert Einstein was born a few years later.

The SPO of 1918 - 1920 saw radio stations spring up as radio receivers became less expensive, resulting in a mass communication our species had never seen before. The first airlines began, and the new art forms of jazz and surrealism were born. World War 1 ended shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Versailles Treaty was signed, virtually guaranteeing World War 2. An influenza pandemic killed tens of millions of people worldwide.

The SPO of the mid Sixties saw technological advances in every field, most notably NASA’s development of the Apollo Moon-landing program, but because Prometheus and Pluto were together for the first time in 115 years, their creative energies were channeled more into cultural, societal, and artistic upheavals. For instance, the Civil Rights movement was peaking as was Women’s Liberation, and the Environmental movement was in it’s infancy. Eastern Religions were gaining a foothold in the West thanks to the Beatle’s journey to India, and this in turn led to the birth of the New Age movement and alternative spirituality.

All four of these movements can be traced back to the previous Uranus/Pluto meeting of the late 1840’s and early 1850’s. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s release of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852 helped push the Abolitionist movement to it’s inevitable conclusion. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first American Women’s Rights organization - was held in 1848. Charles Darwin was formulating his theory of evolution, bringing us a new perception of the natural world, and coincidentally (right!), spiritual Neptune was discovered in 1846, just as the Transcendentalists were doing their thing in bringing to the Western world some Eastern thought. What goes around comes around…

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SUN IN LEO, July 23 - August 23, 2007

Welcome to the doldrums. On steroids. Hurry up and wait - come on - I haven’t got all minute! Oy, what we’re needing is a little magic to get things moving.

Last month (Sun in Cancer) I stumbled upon a correlation between the planetary movements and the Fool card of the Tarot. The Magician card is next in the Major Arcana, and it “just so happens” to fit in with the energetics of the Sun in Leo. More specifically, the Magician within each of us could be called upon to perform acts of alchemy during the Sun’s annual journey through Leo, like turning water into wine, lead into gold, dog droppings into diamonds, and especially turning our personal histories into the myths of legend - the Fool’s journey.

At this rate of one card per month in the order of the tarot, the World/Universe card will be picked for March 2009 as the Sun enters Aries, exactly at the midpoint between Phases 1 and 2 of the Saturn/Uranus opposition. Because the Fool’s journey began this past month - just as the Saturn/Neptune opposition began it’s final separation - is what I’m considering to be the perfect way to connect all the dots for our collective karmic responsibilities in order to become co-creators (with Spirit) of the exit ramp onto Route 2012, whatever that year and the end of the Mayan calendar means for our planet and species.

In other words, I ain’t got a clue for what will actually happen, and this is in perfect keeping with the Fool’s journey. There are no readily available road maps, and the footpaths, highways, and destinations are countless. However, there are so many different and wonderful astrological clues to be had on how to get there from here, and several are unfolding this next month.

The Fool intuitively knows that the future is a blank slate, and that nothing about the future is ever etched in stone. We as Fools also know that the past is history, and the present and future are always what we want to make it look like. We only need to remember that our free-will is our birthright, and that our free-wills can move mountains.

Hopefully, it’s no accident that the final book in the Harry Potter series is being released as the Sun is on the brink of moving into Leo. We’ll need all the Magick and wizardry available to us in order to reawaken our inner Magicians.

The Sun moves into Leo on July 23, not with a mighty roar from Leo the Lion - the King of the Jungle - but more like a whimper from a scrawny kitten. We’re still in Mercury’s retrograde shadow on the 23rd, and Venus is dead in the air ready to turn retrograde herself. The doldrums prevail, and the Magician within each of us begins to stir from the nap he/she has been taking this past year during the Saturn/Neptune opposition.

Leo is linked to matters of the ego, and many people have been wrestling with their egos this past year. There won’t be much help with finding a new one this next month, as within every silver lining is a cloud.

At least the Saturn/Neptune opposition is separating for another 34 years. Yay! This thing has been biting all of us this past year. But this is all over, and we can all think more clearly now that the Mercury retrograde is over, right?

Wrong. Saturn will have moved on and out of opposition to Neptune, only to be replaced in opposition to Neptune by the Sun, Mercury (direct!), and a retrograde Venus throughout August. The global energetic of the Saturn/Neptune opposition IS moving away, but now the personal planets of the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, will try to figure out what the heck has happened to us since last Summer. This shifting energetic might feel like we’re filling-in a large hole by digging three smaller holes.

Complicating matters, our collective inner warrior Mars is in stubbornly bullish Taurus, starting off the Sun entering Leo as the focus of a T-square to the separating Saturn/Neptune opposition. In other words, potentially argumentative Mars is halfway between what we’ve been through this past year, just as Saturn is moving out of opposition to Neptune. At the risk of making a “duh” prediction, we can probably expect an increase of hostilities among fanatical Religious groups during the last weeks of July and the first half of August.

The third planet involved in a T-square becomes the T-square focus. This is a challenging configuration because the T-square focal planet can become an ever vacillating source of strength or weakness, depending on how well we’re responding to it, or if we have natal planets near either of these three points. The 90° angle is problematic because it is off in the periphery of both planets (Saturn and Neptune), so the “focus” isn’t a focus at all - it’s really quite far away from where Saturn or Neptune can see it clearly. We’ll know that Mars is there, but we won’t always be sure what our inner warriors are doing.

At the beginning of the Saturn/Neptune opposition last July and August, expansive Jupiter found himself as the focus of this nasty (yet necessary) energetic, and folks were forced to look closely at their connections with their own true inner divinity (Neptune), or else the authoritarian professor Saturn would be showing us how far we’ve strayed from our own thruths. Fundamentalism was all the rage back then (last year), so some people were looking for any excuse to bloat (Jupiter) their own agendas despite what they knew was in their best spiritual interest, and/or karmic agenda (Neptune), and despite what was realistically feasible (Saturn) for our Souls.

On the other hand, the planet of a T-square focus can offer a “way out” - an ideal escape route for the intuitively inclined (us Magicians), and Jupiter was “it” last Summer. Mars however may incline many to beat themselves up over their stubborn (Taurus) inability to go with the flow of the Saturn/Neptune release.

Mars moves into communicative Gemini on August 7, out of square to Neptune, and moving out of square with Saturn, but almost dead square with an increasingly retrograde Venus. If you happen to be in a tenuous relationship by then, early August will not be an ideal time to try and patch things up. Mars may be looking to pick a fight in a war of words (Gemini), and Venus will want no part of it.

Mars will move along triumphantly (or so he thinks!), but one myth surrounding Venus retrograde is worth considering. When she disappears behind the Sun, she reappears on the other side in the following weeks with blood on her hands, and this blood is not her own. Listen up guys, unless you want your woman turning into the avatar of Lorena Bobbitt, you’d best not think you’ve won any arguments throughout this stretch. The battle of the sexes could easily turn into a full-fledged war, and it should be known that the Goddess always wins, even when she’s retrograde.

At least Mercury IS moving direct again, and retrograde Jupiter turns direct in his ruling sign (Sagittarius) the first week in August. It’s been difficult to start major projects in the past four months while he’s been retrograde, and this combination of shifting energetics alone should help tremendously.

Venus moving retrograde may provide us with many blessings in disguise. This officially lasts from July 27 to September 8, but the weeks on either end are also very much in play. Venus goes retrograde every nineteen months for about 43 days each time, and each are uniquely dependent on whatever sign(s) are involved, what other planets she touches, and which planet(s) if any she’s moving over in our natal charts. This one will be plenty special for all of us if we can enjoy expecting the unexpected.

Venus (in Leo) caught up with Saturn in early July, and will have inched just barely into Virgo before stopping to turn retrograde. Venus slides back into Leo and meets up with plodding Saturn again on August 13, and then Saturn himself moves into Virgo on September 2 for the first time since 1980. Their celestial conversation has been somewhat along these lines:

Venus: “Professor, I’m tired! I’ve been doing all the heavy lifting around here ever since you’ve faced off with Neptune.”

Saturn: “Understandable, my fair Lady. You go lie down and hide behind the Sun for a while. Tell me, what does it look like there in Virgo?”

Venus: “Oh, you know me, I just love a good Earth sign, but it’s getting really too hot in there, and it needs a good cleaning. It’s not perfect.”

Saturn: “Out of my way girlfriend! I’ll teach those humans a few things about destroying my pal Earth! Beneficial caretakers they are not. Have you been reading the latest reports from the Gaia Gazette? It’s been disgraceful!”

Venus: “Don’t be too harsh on our human friends.”

Saturn: “Don’t worry, I will” (a professorial chortle fades out).

Yup, I’d make a horrible playwright. And no, Saturn isn’t kidding. He’s well earned his moniker “The Great Malefic” for those of us who are unwilling to learn from his teaching methods. More on his syllabus for all of us later.

Venus in direct motion is all about the things we cherish and value: love, harmony, peace, happy and productive relationships, and justice, to name just a few of her favorite things. Retrograde, she causes us to reevaluate these same necessities, and as the fog clears from the concluding Saturn/Neptune opposition, a lot of psychic clutter will need a good sorting through. However, Venus retrograde can also bring back stuff from our past-lives, from day-one to last month of our present lives, as well as the last month of a previous life umpteen decades or centuries ago.

Venus’ brief entrance and exit in Virgo will be prompting us to look at the little things we can do to self-ration our natural resources like recycling, making fewer errands in our cars, taking shorter showers, turning the water off while we’re brushing our teeth, etc. On less mundane levels, we’ll be wondering why our friends and significant others are being such a drain on our inner resources, or why they haven’t seemed to have learned a thing about reconnecting with their own inner divinity this past year during the Saturn/Neptune opposition. Little stuff, huge stuff - they will all need to prove themselves, and show us why it matters for these people and things to be sticking around in our lives.

Leo has traditionally been ruled by the Sun, but I’m of the opinion that the Sun rules whatever sign it is in. I like Jupiter being happy with Leo, if not ruling it. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and newcomer Eris are all in Fire signs this month, either partially or wholly, so I hope there won’t be too many more wildfires, although I’m sure we’ll be hearing of these in spades as global warming keeps a lot of us all too dry.

Saturn in a Fire sign (Leo), soon to be moving into an Earth sign (Virgo) is a problematic shift in and of itself. Venus painting Virgo with an over-riding color for this broader energetic is another thing, but our Good Professor Saturn has other tricks up his ringed sleeve. These “tricks” can evolve into global “treats” if we can learn to love Saturn’s relationship with transformational Pluto these days, and appreciate Pluto’s karmic penchant for killing things off so that something else may live and breathe in its place (again?).

Globally, Saturn is gearing up for an exact trine (120°) with Pluto on August 6, while Pluto is still loitering around in front of the mighty black-hole at the center of our galaxy. This trine represents two “malefic” (karmic) planets being happy with each other for the first time in ten years, almost as if this past decade has been a bad dream we need to wake up from. And this is an approaching (waxing) trine - a significant cause for muted celebration. In other words, Saturn’s 30-year orbit has been highlighting Pluto’s 248-year orbit in ways that have been accentuating the shadow energies of both planets.

The Good Professor Saturn was last in (waning) trine with the Ruler of the Underworld Pluto back in 1997 (remember peace and prosperity?), with Saturn in the action-oriented Fire sign Aries (ruled by warrior Mars), just as Pluto was beginning his voyage through the crucible Fire of Sagittarius.

Pluto is still in Sagittarius, but Saturn has been going through his teaching methods in various levels of difficulties with Pluto ever since 1997, starting with Clinton’s impeachment. Oy, 9/11 and the start of the wars in the Middle East were at the midpoint of these Saturn/Pluto trines, with Saturn opposed Pluto (180° away) from 2001 - 2002. It’s important to keep this larger (Saturnian) perspective in mind, otherwise we can too easily trend toward despondency that certain unpleasantries will never end.

Also on the grand scale, Pluto snails into judicious Capricorn in January 2008 for a five-month visit before oozing back into Sagittarius for another five months, and finally into Capricorn full-time until 2023.

In Pluto’s wake at the center of our galaxy, scientists have been learning more about the “dwarf Sagittarius” galaxy that is slowly colliding with our own Milky Way galaxy. Yup, that distant rumble you’ve been sensing is the death of one nearby galaxy, and perhaps the eventual total transformation of our own. This is Plutonian energy in all its glory, and the astronomers who downgraded Pluto to “dwarf” status last Summer had better duck their heads when Pluto enters Capricorn!

If Pluto rules the Underworld of Hades, he also rules whatever is under our feet, like oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear fuel minerals that can be turned into Pluto’s namesake plutonium. These supplies of energy are inevitably exhaustible, but farther below our feet is inexhaustible geothermal energy, and this might just be what Saturn (and Pluto) will be trying to teach us soon - to dig deeper into the Underworld of the Earth that Virgo (Saturn) and Capricorn (Pluto) represent - both on global levels for our basic survival as a species, as well as for us as individuals in our need to realize (to make real) our karmic responsibilities to clean everything up.

Meanwhile, Earth Mother Ceres is holding down the fort in Taurus while Mars bugs out into Gemini. Ceres is the only planet wholly within an Earth sign this month, so if we can elevate this former asteroid babe into our hearts and minds, she’ll help us get a better grip on what Saturn will be teaching us during his classes in Virgo. Consider the Goddess of Agriculture and Nurturing (Ceres) to be Saturn’s teaching assistant while we cope with these doldrums. She can be the earth below our feet in the shifting energetics of the Sun in Leo.

Unfortunately (oh really?), Ceres will take over from Mars as the focus of the T-square between the separating Saturn/Neptune opposition, and the subsequent T-squares of Sun, Mercury and Venus in opposition to Chiron and Neptune mentioned above. Ceres will present her nurturing skills often and regularly if we only let her do so. The potential rage left by the Martian T-square focus can be mollified by Ceres’ attentive and nurturing radiance, but we’ll have to seek out the Earth Mothers’ glow until she turns retrograde herself in September.

By then (September), Venus will be moving direct again, and she’ll be refreshed and renewed to face the new challenges presented by Saturn’s visit through Virgo, especially as Venus reenters Virgo in early October - during a Mercury retrograde in Scorpio.

Stay tuned Magicians.